


Do you know what you do to me?

by rigelianprince



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem 外伝 | Fire Emblem Gaiden
Genre: F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 13:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13741776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rigelianprince/pseuds/rigelianprince
Summary: Mae recounts the development of her relationship with Celica, through both hardships and happy times up to the present moment and looking to the future.





	Do you know what you do to me?

They told me it was just a silly crush, that I’d grow out of it. They told me I couldn’t like you, that it wasn’t allowed. But I still did. I always liked you. I pretended for a long time that I didn’t, and that ended up just hurting me more – it even ended up hurting you.

We spoke about it that night, under the stars. Your soft hand was linking my fingers like an unbreakable iron chain. I didn’t want to let go, but when I did, I swore I felt a twinge of resistance. Like the hesitation a bird has before it flaps its wings; when it’s falling, or soaring; when it’s tempted to let it all go and crash into the earth… but it never does. It always flies. That’s what I felt when I withdrew my hand and left you there in the field. You wanted to hold on to me and trace the unreachable constellations with our fingertips, recall their names and laugh the night away like we used to. But you weren’t supposed to want that. Like a bird, instinct took over, and you let me go into the night, teary-eyed and cold and alone. But I don’t blame you for that. I was the one supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around, and what we spoke about that night endangered you. It gave you an attachment.

From then on, we had our own unspoken rule. It was all about him. Every thought I ever had was always about you, but every word I ever spoke was about him. It was a fun lying game for the both of us. I would be the love-struck puppy head-over-heels for this boy, and you’d be the wise and sincere friend, advising me on what to say and what to do. Bless him and his little unsuspecting heart. It was cruel, I think, when I look back now, to do that to him. Yet he did play his fair share of tricks and jokes, so maybe he deserved it.

And he had the freedom of being able to love who he wanted to.

Yes, that is how I always justified it. That same, bitter conclusion I came to many sleepless, tearful nights. Do you know what you did to me? You made me crazy, crazy with love and lust and anger and sorrow and pain and happiness and you made me sick with worry and anxiety and all the other emotions under the sun. And all the other emotions under the moon too. It was unhealthy for me, because we were healthy. Would have been healthy. I was depriving myself of something I needed to function and I suffered because of it. More importantly, you suffered because of it.

I came to your tent the night it happened, remember? You were sat there in bed, bandaged arm and blood-stained bedsheets. Thank Mother Mila it was just your arm. It could have been worse, but I shouldn’t have been thinking with ‘could have been’s. It would have been worse if I had been with you alone, lacking in the skill you needed for protection.

“Mae,” you told me, “it’s not your fault.” And I was in floods of tears.

Why were you so nice? (Why are you so nice? The world was certainly not nice to you.) You were the one injured, and I was the one sobbing. But your lips made everything better. Your words were honey, those sounds that escaped those lips were celestial, but the feeling of those lips was indescribable. It all happened so fast. I don’t remember walking over and sitting beside you, or you taking my hand in yours – something that hadn’t happened since the night under the stars – or you getting closer to me, but I remember the feeling of it, the feelings of it all, the adrenaline and the two hearts beating fast in unison. The smell of your perfume, your hair, the taste of your soft lips. Everything I couldn’t have – everything we couldn’t have – was ours for the taking then and there. And you bet we seized it. For one night only, in sly secret, we lived our wildest fantasies and held eternity in the palms of our hands.

And this night, this night you didn’t let go.

The shock when we were found that morning, eh? Two lovebirds that had nosedived into bliss and wonder the whole night before. But we weren’t ashamed, we just smiled. We were hooked on this new wonder, and our lying game felt like a lie. There was no hiding it then. Not even from your boy. He always had his eye on others anyway. And my boy? He loved us both enough to let us be happy together. I respect him for that.

But do you remember what I said before all that, before I even said those three magic words, Celica?

I asked you: “Do you know what you do to me?”

And you said: “Yes, because you do the same to me.”

I don’t know why we allowed ourselves to be contained for so long, but that’s easy to say now. We were just two silly girls with too many men telling us what to do. Now we’re older, and the men telling us what to do are the ones tugging at our legs asking their mothers to hold them.

Like fine wine, we only got better with age. We matured, and our love matured, and now our love is raising a family. I couldn’t ask for anything more from this world, so long as the four of us remain together, always, and remain happy and remain healthy. You know what you do to me, Celica, and I know what I do to you. But there’s another unspoken thing that we both know what the other would do, and that is what we would do to whoever, whatever, came between us and our darling children. And that something is a something we would do until we grey with the years, until our bodies turn frail and are weighed down only by the sheer quantity of love in our hearts, until then, Celica, when we can’t do it ourselves anymore, my old boy will step in and do it for us.

You know what I’m saying. We are meant to be, crafted by the gods themselves like two adjacent puzzle pieces in this jigsaw of a world. Maybe we will occupy our corner, or maybe we will travel the globe, looking for the perfect spot to settle down for the rest of infinity. But I know whatever we do, we will do it surrounded by the people we love, and we will do it together, just the way we started all this: hand in hand.


End file.
